On the morning of July 30th, 2020, a 191-foot tall Atlas V-541 rocket raced the sun into the sky from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Its destination: our rusty-hued celestial neighbor, Mars.
While already a breathtaking feat of engineering, the rocket’s payload included a curious, almost trivial thing; something never before encountered in the Cosmos.
It carried my name. Yours too, perhaps, if you signed up for it.
For seven months, that vehicle has traversed the roughly 293 million miles that currently stretch between our two worlds without a single bathroom break. On the plus side, traffic was light. There were only two other vehicles on the road during the entire trip.
Soon that wondrous assemblage of scientific instruments will descend through the thin Martian atmosphere, perform a precisely calculated set of maneuvers, and touch down on an alien world (fingers crossed). Millions will watch the event from all across this amazing blue marble.
Our names are landing on another world! Long after the rover’s mission parameters have been fulfilled and its energies depleted, it will remain on Mars as a monument to human achievement. How awesome is that?
As someone who has been interested in space exploration since I was a kid watching Star Trek reruns, events like this are cause for great excitement. Mars has been our constant next-door neighbor since before humans took their first glimpses skyward, yet we’ve barely begun to unlock its mysteries. Even less so the myriad worlds that lie beyond our local galactic cul-de-sac.
We have been poetically described as a way for the Universe to observe itself—matter spewed forth from the crucible of exploding stars assembled into a conveniently sentient humanoid form, capable of pondering its place in the Cosmos. Endless debates echo throughout halls of learning, houses of religion, and the lawn chairs of late-night stargazers. We all strive to understand not just the meaning of ourselves, but our place amongst the greater scheme of things. Why are we here? Are we alone in the Universe? If a rock tumbles on Mars, and no rover is there to record the anomaly with its onboard sensors, does it make a sound?
Exploration is the first step towards answering some of those questions.
My own, one for which I can already guess the answer, is: How awesome is that?
